An Rover. Vitesse.
Posted: Mon Aug 04, 2014 11:28 pm
Well it had to happen at some point. 2 weeks ago I decided I'd had enough of that Mondeo, and wanted something older, simpler, and less grief to work on. So, with the Mondeo up for sale, one of my 'always wanted one of those' cars popped up for sale online, after a chat, a deal was done, which worked out fine as seller was away, and Mondeo hadn't sold. It went last week, and today I took delivery of it, as it worked out cheaper than me going to get it with a hired trailer.
Now this apparently was a Rover Management car, hence the full leather rather than cloth trim, I think I prefer the cloth, but then, it makes it posher rather than sporty inside. Maybe I'll swap it for the proper cloth one day, maybe I won't. It's been sat for a year or so, so isn't in the best of conditions, but it was bought to be a rolling resto as such, I hope to get it MOTd and taxed without too much hassle, then renovate it as we go along, as there are a few scabs breaking out, and the paintwork is flatter than roadkill. Looks like it will come back without too much grief after working on a small area.
After sitting unloved for so long, I was a bit wary of starting it, the dead battery turned out to be a loose terminal, so on turning the key, the dash lights came on, but just a whirr click was all I got. Attaching some jump leads and trying again, it turned over a few times then burst into life. It settled down to a fairly nice tickover, with the odd stutter, but then you would too after being asleep for a year! I suppose that's the joys of EFi over carbs to some extent.
Everything seems to work, the central locking, 4x electric windows, although the cassette player leaves a lot to be desired for tapes, unless you like the warble. It has a leak of coolant too, as it marked its territory after being run up, can't quite see where it's leaking from, so will require some further investigation. Hopefully nothing too serious.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to play and dig around more tomorrow, I'm quite looking forward to getting stuck into this one.
Oh and it's not a V8 either, it's much rarer than one of those
Now this apparently was a Rover Management car, hence the full leather rather than cloth trim, I think I prefer the cloth, but then, it makes it posher rather than sporty inside. Maybe I'll swap it for the proper cloth one day, maybe I won't. It's been sat for a year or so, so isn't in the best of conditions, but it was bought to be a rolling resto as such, I hope to get it MOTd and taxed without too much hassle, then renovate it as we go along, as there are a few scabs breaking out, and the paintwork is flatter than roadkill. Looks like it will come back without too much grief after working on a small area.
After sitting unloved for so long, I was a bit wary of starting it, the dead battery turned out to be a loose terminal, so on turning the key, the dash lights came on, but just a whirr click was all I got. Attaching some jump leads and trying again, it turned over a few times then burst into life. It settled down to a fairly nice tickover, with the odd stutter, but then you would too after being asleep for a year! I suppose that's the joys of EFi over carbs to some extent.
Everything seems to work, the central locking, 4x electric windows, although the cassette player leaves a lot to be desired for tapes, unless you like the warble. It has a leak of coolant too, as it marked its territory after being run up, can't quite see where it's leaking from, so will require some further investigation. Hopefully nothing too serious.
Hopefully I'll get a chance to play and dig around more tomorrow, I'm quite looking forward to getting stuck into this one.
Oh and it's not a V8 either, it's much rarer than one of those
